Monday, December 22, 2014

They say life is a book comprised of multiple chapters and
in my case, it’s time to close a very long chapter in my book with my career at
Cisco drawing to a close. As I look back on my career every move I’ve made has
always been a step forward and this next one, no less so than the others I’ve
taken. I am nervous, excited and anxious to get started in my new role and as I
look back, it’s been a great ride.

I’ve had the opportunity to participate in all roles of the
networking ecosystem from partner, to customer and finally to vendor. Each job
provided different perspectives and lessons learned. Some were from the school
of hard knocks (DLSw and SNAsw come to mind) and many were “once in a lifetime”
opportunities.I’m proud of the job
I’ve, done, the solutions I’ve helped customers with and teams I’ve been
honored to be a part of.

I started as a SE focusing on a large Enterprise customer in
Columbus before moving into a Consulting SE and finally being honored to become
one of the first Data Center Technology Solutions Architects (TSA) in the company.
The DC TSA was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had – being a Philmont Ranger for
the summer of ’91 was the best. The team I was part of kicked ass and took
names wherever we went and many of them are still great friends.

My most recent role as a Technical Marketing Engineer (TME)
for the Nexus 7000 product has been incredible. I’ve traveled the world,
visiting 5 continents only missing Africa and Antarctica, presented to
audiences in Australia, Europe and the US at our largest customer events, Cisco
Live and even earned Distinguished Speaker twice!Once in Australia and once in the US – I came
close in Europe but couldn’t crack the code to get the audience to earn it.

I’ve flown over
400,000 miles, almost all in Economy, mind you - :)
- to meet customers, partners and the Cisco field teams.

I also, with the help of my co-authors, updated the 2nd
edition of the CiscoPress NX-OS book and recorded a video LiveLesson series
which will be available in late December of 2014. I started and maintained the
@CiscoNexus7000 Twitter account and helped spread the NX-OS gospel there as
well. That journey alone allowed me to make some incredible friends and
acquaintances and I’ll miss the TweetUps at CiscoLive. I had a great time recoding podcasts with the
@PacketPushers team and presented at Network Field Day.

I’ve interacted with hundreds of customers, thousands of
SEs, answered bajillions of questions via email, phone call, Twitter, FAQs and
documents. I’ve forged so many great relationships and sad to know that my
chances of meeting some of them again face to face is very slim. I’ve enjoyed
working with each and every one of you and hope the feeling is mutual.

For those of you who like to speculate on conspiracy
theories as to why I am leaving Cisco, it’s quite simple.I’ve climbed this mountain and it’s time for
the next. I like expanding my horizons and I’m not leaving Cisco because I hate
them or being forced out (I was just promoted as a reminder).This has been a tough decision but I’m
confident that I’m making the right one for me and my family. I love Cisco and
appreciate all they have done for me.I can look back on my time with Cisco and feel satisfied and
not feel I am leaving work unfinished.Thank you to all of the great people I worked with and the friends I’ve
made. I’m sure many of our paths will cross again because as Disney likes to
say “It’s a Small World.”

As the song implies, it’s time to turn the page. (For those
wondering, I’m a big fan of the Metallica version).This next chapter promises to be exciting as
my new employer, VMware, is bringing a compelling set of capabilities to the
data center and I am going to be joining a team with tons of potential and the
opportunity to help customers move into the future. It’ll be a wild ride I ‘m
sure as I shift from my CLI history to a new way of doing things.I have a lot to learn and I’m happy I’ll be
joining a team that already is setting into motion a training path to help me
be successful.I’ll be starting in a role
I know well, as a Systems Engineer in the Networking & Security Business
Unit (NSBU) as a field resource.

Now, it’s time to enjoy the Christmas and New Year’s holiday
with my family and re-charge my batteries to hit the ground running in January.

Looking forward to more "full tilt boogie" goodness from you. And I hope you're actually in CMH every once in a while. I get there a few times per year, so maybe we can get together if VMware lets you work from home from time to time. ;-)

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About Me

Field Engineer at VMware focused on NSX though blog posts are all my own. Husband, father, F1 fanatic and geek.
Ron Fuller is a Staff Engineer in the Network and Security Business Unit (NSBU) focused on NSX for VMware. He has 22 years of experience in the industry and has held certifications from VMware, Novell, HP, Microsoft, ISC2, SNIA, and Cisco including two CCIEs No. 5851 (Routing and Switching/Storage Networking). His focus is working with customers to address their challenges with comprehensive end-to-end Data Center architectures and how they can best utilize VMware technology to their advantage. He is the co-author of the VMware Press NSX Fundamentals LiveLesson video series. This adds to his existing body of work with CiscoPress. He has had the opportunity to speak in Europe, Australia and the United States on multiple networking and security topics. He lives in Ohio with his wife and four wonderful children and enjoys travel and auto racing. He can be found on Twitter @ccie5851.